KENDAL RUFC's director of rugby Steve Whitehead was delighted with his side's 'exceptional' performance on Saturday as the Black and Ambers beat league leaders Wirral 22-14 at their own ground.

The impressive victory came during a unenviable start to the campaign which will see Kendal having faced four of the league's strongest sides, according to Whitehead. Next week's opponents Lymm fit well into that category along with Wirral, Hull, and Huddersfield.

Kendal prepared for the trip to Merseyside with a team meeting in midweek, with Whitehead keen for players to avoid 'looking inwardly' at recent results.

He said: "We had a pre-match brief where went through what's happened thus far – our performances, was the system working – and it was very worthwhile and put everything in perspective.

"We spoke to the players and said we're not far away from clicking, we talked about our error count and not giving away as many penalties and we took that into the game and it paid off against a Wirral side who are obviously at the top."

Whitehead highlighted the returns of Chris Downham and James Gough to the side as big factors to the win, along with excellent contributions from the ever-impressive Dini Noyo and a great showing from Dom Musetti. But it was the team performance that particularly pleased Whitehead.

He added: "For the first time we really showed our capabilities for 80 minutes and we showed what we're capable of against the best. This was not a smash and grab win, we completely out-played them, out-thought them, and we executed our gameplan effectively.

"To a man on Saturday the performance level was high and it was for 80 minutes. You couldn't pick anyone out who wasn't exceptional."